Frank Dees, on a mission to protect athletes

Frank Dees and his older brother, Ricky, were both on their high school football team. One week, in 1964, the team played two games. In Tuesday’s game, Ricky made a tackle on a hard hit, and told Frank afterward that his head hurt. At Saturday’s game, Ricky got another blow to the head — and died. Ricky’s number, 54, was retired. Frank shared his story with The Enterprise in 2012 when the newspaper was editorializing on the need for local high schools to adopt a testing program that provides a baseline so athletes suffering concussions aren’t sent back to play too soon. Frank Dees has, since then, shared the Enterprise editorial that tells his story with hundreds of people and has a binder with hundreds of letters, personal responses to his plea. In this week’s podcast he talks with heart about his mission of protecting athletes from themselves. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.